


What Mark Misses

by drawingblinds (breathtaken)



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-04
Updated: 2006-04-04
Packaged: 2017-12-24 03:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathtaken/pseuds/drawingblinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mark misses the old days."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Mark Misses

Mark misses the old days.

Back when there were gigs, when Roger wrote songs that might not have been amazing but were wild and raw and catchy, that made his audience scream and sing and jump and made him feel like he owned the sky. When there were paychecks, and Roger used to buy milk because he knew that Mark preferred his coffee that way, and sometimes he would come home with whiskey or take-out and announce that that night, they were going to party. Back when they would spend entire days doing nothing, sometimes spending the whole day in bed laughing at something stupid, and Mark could lean against Roger and feel like he'd found the brother he'd never had. Back when Mark worked his shitty little job in Starbucks, but didn't hate it because each evening he'd come home to a sarky or stupid remark from his best friend and know that this was the life he wanted to live.

Before there were girls, with their soft cheeks and delicate, rounded jawlines, and they were lost inside kohl-rimmed eyes and gentle, novel curves and couldn't find each other's existence. Before there were drugs, artificial highs and hours lost to the feel of the wall against the back of Roger's head or his search for patterns and order in the meaningless stains that covered the side arm of the sofa, as Mark used to sit in his room with his head in his hands and pretend he didn't know what was happening. Before there was death, a bathtub of bloodied water and two lifeless eyes, a double tragedy, a heartbreak and a death sentence for his best ever friend. Before there was withdrawal, a Roger who shook and cried and screamed and lashed out, words that hurt more than he would admit, rages and sorrows and a Roger that wouldn't even look at him for days at a time. Before a Roger that seems to have died inside and wouldn't care if he left tomorrow.

Mark misses those times. He misses the old Roger, and the person he used to be, the fun they used to have together before there were girls and smack and Roger became who he is now, the tragic, withdrawn figure on the windowsill who watches the world but won't go near it, the man that Mark still loves, and will probably always love, but can't remember the last time that he actually liked.

But when the night stretches out and Mark is his most integral and most honest self, the selfish bastard in him wants to ask, _what about me?_ He can't remember the last time he said anything other than greetings and small talk, make sure you eat something, take your AZT. He wants to shake Roger until he cares about his nightmares, that he couldn't close his eyes for nine months without seeing April's lifeless face behind them. He wants to show Roger the film he's never taped, of crying silently in his room and sometimes crying when he's out because his best friend is killing him, he takes and takes and never gives and one day, one way, he'll leave him forever and he just can't do it, he doesn't know how. He wants to shout that he lost his job through caring for him, used up all his savings on keeping Roger in food and pills, can't remember the last time his stomach felt full, wants him to care and be thankful. And most of all, he misses that he used to be able to watch Roger without being glued to the spot and unable to think outside his friend and his violent, private pain, the fact that he used to be able to touch him without a stomach full of molten fire and a throat full of shame, the fact that he used to be able to look into the worlds of his hard green eyes without feeling like he's falling with no hope of salvation.

When he's drunk or careless, Mark sometimes says to Roger that he longs for the old times, lets it slip through liquor's sultry haze as he leans against him. Roger doesn't get angry any more, the way he used to, but just pats his arm and tells him that he knows, he understands. 

But Mark feels the now familiar burning that has nothing to do with the lateness of the hour or the alcohol he's consumed, and misses the old days more than Roger could ever imagine.


End file.
